Tales of Forgotten Rain Ponchos

No Rain Poncho for the Cave of the Winds

The Cave of the Winds is absolutely beautiful. You can look straight up and see the huge waterfall coming down towards you, all the mist flowing from the falls, and all the people up above on the cliff who are nice and dry in their rain ponchos. My friends and I were about to take on the wettest attraction at Niagara Falls USA, without rain ponchos.

Time to get wet!

There was no turning back at this point. The basic layout for the cave is really pretty simple. There are decks that climb upward until you eventually reach the deck that is directly below the huge waterfall. Our group of brave adventurers (or dumb adventurers, depending on how you look at us) stopped at the very bottom dock to take a few ”before” pictures. We are all smiles, and at this point in time we are nice and dry. Each visitor is given a rain poncho, my rain poncho just happened to end up in the trash on this day.

Upward we started climbing, and things got really wet, really quickly. The rain poncho that I had been given was probably nice and dry in its little trash can. At the next level of decks, I was already just as wet as I had been on the Maid of the Mist, and we had another 3 levels to climb. The most annoying part of this was that our group stopped at each deck for at least 3 or 4 minutes to take pictures. Those of us without rain ponchos couldn’t handle that type of a delay, so we climbed up farther. Two decks from the top, my biggest fear of the entire weekend came true. The lone brave girl in the group, Stephanie Perez, decided that she was going to lift up my shirt, and use it as an umbrella for her head. As soon as my shirt got lifted, I felt this huge wave of water hit my back, and go straight down into my underwear. This marked the first time in probably 15 years that my voice reached such a high pitch. A rain poncho probably won’t help you against friends trying to use you as an umbrella, just as a warning.

The group laughed at me for awhile, and then we went up to the next to last deck. At this point everything was wet already, and it was time to enjoy and embrace being a human sponge. We didn’t linger at this level for very long at all. The next deck was the prize, and we were all about to experience the ultimate goal of reaching the wettest area of the park. I was the first to climb that ladder, with Caleb, Stephanie, Hussain, and Raven right behind me. We all sprinted into the wettest corner, and celebrated our achievement.

You know how during winter, when you first walk outside the cold air sucks all the oxygen out of your body for a second? Standing under the falls had that exact same effect. It kind of shocked me for a second. But being there and looking straight up at the falls, seeing that much water crashing down in front of you, was pretty amazing. It was probably the coldest water that has ever touched me, and after soaking it up for about 15 seconds, I ran like a little girl. The group of us who had been brave and poncho-less had accomplished our final mission. I feel like I would have come out much dryer after jumping into the ocean than I was leaving the Cave of the Winds.

The worst part of the trip was realizing that Vikram had somehow fallen behind, and was only on the 3rd deck. So what did our group of brain dead, crazy college students do? We went back for our fallen soldier and did the entire thing all over again. The workers at Niagara Falls got wind that we were coming back to stand under the falls, and they went ahead and turned the water temperature down about 5 degrees. So cold. Yes, that was a joke, but it really felt like it was colder the second time.

After the cave of the winds

Niagara Falls on the U.S. side has an amazing scenic view; if you haven’t been I would strongly suggest it to anyone of any age. On the Maid of the Mist, I would recommend going no poncho, seriously. It’s not that wet and it makes the entire boat ride feel more like a water park ride. I would strongly recommend wearing scuba gear to the Cave of the Winds.

At the end of the challenge we regrouped to take a few photos. Here is a picture of the aftermath.

I will take this paragraph to gloat a little bit. Brother Jared, thank you very much for this idea, it made the trip much more exciting and gave me something to write about on here. Most importantly it gave me another task to further prove myself as the dominant Clement’s family son. I took the challenge in full stride and dominated it. In your face!

3 Comments

Leah / Niagara Falls is beautiful our young pelpoe went during one of our youth trips. We arrived a little before the sun went down so we got to see it during the day but after dark they put lights on the water and it was spectacular. It is definitely one of Gods handy works.